City again gift a two lead to the opposition, this time half-paced Premiership struggling Watford in the League Cup, before battling back well and nearly earning extra time.

It was, as noted epigrammatist and Orioles linebacker Yogi Berra so felicitously observed, a case of déjà vu all over again. On Saturday in Preston we opened with an introspective 4-5-1 formation, faded glumly to a 2-0 deficit and then perked up by reverting to a more vigorous 4-4-2, duly pulled a goal back and in the match’s later stages came precious close to an equalising fall. And so it was, word-for-word, according to precisely the same recipe, last night in Watford.

Leaving it until frustratingly late to play properly:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Delaney Dawson
France Welsh Ashbee Elliott
Marney Parkin

Sort of. Marney was clearly planned as the man in the hole, bridging a tackling midfield, a pair of wide men and also a solo target man (it’s a triple bridge, like in Ljubljana). There’ll be more about Marney later. But not about his contribution as a footballer. If we are to maintain the bridge metaphor – and I suspect no metaphor has ever knowingly been left under-worked ‘neath tiger-chat’s contented eaves – then Marney creaked, swayed in the breeze, saw girders rust away for want of due attention, gazed in crass disregard as the stanchions groaned under the weight of expectation and then collapsed into an ugly debris of destroyed metalwork, steaming concrete and wasted cheques bearing the gloating words “Paid on behalf of Hull City AFC”.

And, on a delightfully mild evening, we set off defending the distant home end. We’d survived nearly a whole minute on Saturday before falling behind to Preston, and this time Tiger resolution and grit delayed the deficit until all of two minutes had been clocked. A free-kick was carelessly conceded (by Turner, I think – but far end, hard to be sure) and from 25 yards out Ashley Young curled a shot over the wall and into the net via the despairing Myhill’s fingertips.

With the exception of the absurdly begloved full-back Lloyd Doyley, Watford were playing a proper side – not the usual League Cup mix of reserves and Under-9s – and the game took a pleasingly lively shape, even if the League Cup will never deliver the intensity of a proper competition. And on 15 we should have been level. France swung the ball into the box from the right, Parkin produced a majestic first touch to lay the ball back into the path of Welsh, in space about 15 yards out … and he clouted a shot horribly, wastefully high of the goal. A minute later Elliott presses uncertain defenders and contrives a low shot, well blocked by the large and sturdy Foster in the home goal.

On 22 Young releases a glorious through ball for Bouazza – Boaz blocks. That’s the most zs ever in a single sentence found in a tiger-chat match report, but – ironically enough! – there’s no cause for sleeping in this game. No. None.

You see what I’ve done there?

Mmm…..

A few minutes later Stuart Elliott attempts to improve the all-comers’ record for ludicrous dives aimed at winning at a penalty – it is, of course, his own record to break, history’s top ten including nine of Stuey’s plus one of Francis Lee’s – but the referee chooses to giggle rather than whip out the yellow card, a generous mercy for the occasionally daft Ulsterman. “God made me fall, ref, honestly”. Look, Stuart, I know he moves in mysterious ways but shoving you over in the penalty area at Watford when you’re climbing all over the goalkeeper is surely a gesture too far even for the Lord of Creation.

On 30 Myhill serves up a superb block from a near-post flick by Bouazza, but we’re coping reasonably well – though Watford have the comfort of a 1-0 lead which means they don’t need to force the pace. 4-5-1 blights our attacking potential, especially when Marney’s indolence converts the formation effectively into 4-4-1, but the midfield has toiled honestly, Parkin has been excellent and in truth it hadn’t been a bad first-half display, even if the very best moment of the whole period arrived when a player from either side collapsed to the turf injured, prompting a thrillingly impromptu “race of the trainers”, all fiercely pumping little legs and spilling-over sponge bags. A dead-heat, we called it. Not so on the scoreboard. 1-0 Watford, half-time.

Our support? 600. Easily. More maybe. An astonishing turn-out so far from home in this Cup of paltry meaning. I remember a re-arranged night match at Gillingham in the very early 1980s where – in the days before proper segregation – I swear I was one of only two City fans present. There’ve been games – and not so remote in time – where fewer than 200 travelling supporters have been present at places like Plymouth and Swindon. And here we are taking a buoyant 600 to Watford in the League Cup. It’s wonderful, and it is testimony to the healthy state of our club, so consistently on the rise in recent seasons. What could puncture the mood? Relegation? Maybe. What about promotion? Watford’s programme listed prices for their forthcoming trip to Stamford Bridge. Choose between tickets priced at GBP 45 and GBP 48. You’d go the first time. Would you bother again? If it’s on telly? Mass away supporting seems to be under threat in the top tier.

Ten minutes into the second-half, and the sloppy defending that has caused us so much damage already this season has seemingly wrenched this tie beyond our despairing grip. Marney has given the ball away, France has compounded the error with a weird panicky hoof back towards his own goal and then, with most of the defence looking puzzled and static, Ricketts has been easily outmuscled by tough Magyar Priskin, who slams the ball past the stranded Myhill. O, this felt bad. We play 4-5-1, which at least should make us stuffy and hard to break down and then we gift opportunities to the opposition through gross negligence. It’s woefully inept stuff – contagious too, as even the saintly Delaney is outbattled in the air at a corner by the ungainly Henderson – and it needs to be brought to an end soon or else we will be relegated.

I have a suggestion.

Let’s play 4-4-2. Let’s attack a bit more adventurously. Let’s play more to our strengths.

On 62 Marney exits. I was planning another diatribe against this dismally uninterested player, but now I’ve got this far in the report, I can’t face it. He was off the pitch, that was good, and if I write more about him now I’ll just get cross and red in the face and keen to punch people smaller than me. Duffy comes on, to a hero’s welcome of a “Good Lord! He’s not Marney! I love him!” variety, and soon after Barmby replaces Elliott.

We’re playing 4-4-2. We’re attacking a bit more adventurously. We’re playing more to our strengths.

And we score too! Football’s such a simple game, especially when you’re writing a report a few hours after the final whistle, but you’ve just gotta trust me here, as early as 7h45 last night I really was saying “4-5-1 with Marney in the team, I just don’t think it’s the way to go”, and if I had a proper job, with responsibility and staff and an executive toilet and, most important of all, a hand-held Bilberry like Julian Daniel I really would have told you all this at the time. Anyway. Mayhem down the right, Parkin and Duffy, working in tandem like a front two – glory be! – upset the home defence and the ball pops us nicely for Barmby to leap, swivel and crash the ball into the net. 2-1, game on, as those suffering from advanced cliché syndrome would have it.

It’s nearly 2-2 as we are agonisingly close to comedy goal of the season. Foster tries to boot the ball clear, scuffs it along the ground, and the ball cannons into the heel of an unsuspecting defender trotting upfield expecting his keeper’s clearance to come sailing serenely over his head. The ball ricochets sideways to Parkin in space and he nonchalantly lifts a deft chip high over the marooned and aghast Foster. It’s going in …. No it isn’t. Parkin’s effort slides just the wrong side of the post.

That turns out to be our best opportunity. But, playing with plenty of attacking vigour, we are much the better side in the later stages and Watford, supposedly our superiors, are hanging on with little conviction. As exemplified by the departure of Danny Shittu, well regarded on his Premiership displays this season, but now replaced by a man more willing to face up the potent power of the Beast, the massive Malky McKay. But the Beast, rampaging with silk and steel last night in the style of last season, is the better. On 85, a free-kick by Yeates (on for France) is flicked goalwards by Parkin – fine save by Foster. On 88 a powerful shot by Ashbee draws an even better full-length stop from Foster, and though the rebound is seized upon by Parkin and bashed back towards the net, McKay intervenes to bludgeon the ball skywards for a corner.

And then it’s over, and we’re out. Thus conserving our remarkable record of never ever having managed to win three ties in the League Cup (well, not in the same season).

After the final whistle I wandered away from Vicarage Road, inspecting the charmed café society that places Hertfordshire high on any list of Europe’s most elegant, and I reflected that (i) we’ve got some decent players, (ii) that they mostly show a vigorous slice of determination, and that (iii) it is only momentary defensive frailties that are causing us our current travails – and they are surely curable. And then, after a few minutes of unnaturally benevolent post-defeat musings, I reminded myself that I had felt the same immediately after the modestly pleasing closing portion of Saturday’s game at Deepdale. And we’d done it again – played an obtusely defensive line-up and started to play properly only when chasing the game. As Saturday, so Tuesday. Mistakes are there to be learned from. I don’t think our manager is doing this.

HULL CITY (4-5-1): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Delaney, Dawson; France, Marney, Welsh, Ashbee, Elliott; Parkin.  Subs: Duffy (for Marney, 62), Barmby (for Elliott, 68), Yeates (for France, 78), Plummer, Duke.

Goals: Barmby 71

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

WATFORD: Foster, Doyley, DeMerit, Shittu, Stewart, Young, Mahon, Francis, Bouazza, Henderson, Priskin.  Subs: Mackay (for Shittu, 85), Spring (for Francis, 90), Lee, Powell, MacNamee.

Goals: Young 2, Priskin 54

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: I Williamson

ATTENDANCE: 8,274